Choosing a crew - Claudia Black as Captain Florence Reilly
Florence Reilly
"Meet one of the most unconventional captain of the whole Universe, a model that Kirk was trying to follow through all his career."
"It has to be fun - Bran said. So we began contemplating about character of our captain. You know, it is one hundred years before Kirk. Earth has only several colonies - on the Moon, Mars, Alpha Centauri and missing one in Terra Nova. Space is the Great Unknown for humans. Besides Vulcans, Andorians and Tellarites we did not made first contacts beside finding some ancient ruins. The captain for 22nd century had to be WAY more willing to kick ass than Picard, Sisko, Janeway or even Kirk. She was supposed to be Kirk's childhood hero. In the Sulu episode, in Voyager, Janeway even comments on how much fun it would have been to ride shotgun with Kirk and Spock. While we did not intend to copy whole ideas from earlier series, we wanted to show Kirk's childhood hero, captain who show disregard for her own life in event of danger, who is willing to make hard choices. Unconventional, magnificent, willing to bend laws of the United Earth to do what she thinks is right. We don't have the Prime Directive yet. Nor major procedures for the Starfleet. We even did not have a Starfleet at all! It's Spacefleet commanded by the Spaceflight Command, a subordinate of UESPA. They are making their first steps into space. Who would they choose if not someone actually mad?"
"Q: Why Claudia Black?
A: At first we wanted to hire someone more known in the science fiction and Star Trek. But then, we watched some Voyager episodes for an inspiration that we could use for Enterprise. I saw Claudia Black fighting hand-to-hand fight against Borg drones while shouting at them and I said: "We need her!". Casting went marvelous. We gave her Reilly's line from the conversation with Ambassador Soval and asked her to read it. There was no other actor to give that amount of energy, passion and power to the script."